Binary Systems
by Factorielle
Summary: Mirrors are windows to another world, one that subtly interacts with our own. People can become slaves to their reflections. In which Doumeki makes a wish, Yuuko drinks, and Watanuki is not a vampire. [eventually DoumekiWatanuki]


**Disclaimer:** xxxHOLiC and its characters belong to CLAMP.  
**Warning:** Minor spoilers for volume 8. Rating is subject to change.

**Chapter 1: Generation **

"Oh," Yuuko said when Watanuki was done omitting the details of how he'd needed to be rescued _this_ time, and "so did you bring me that mirror?"

Doumeki covered his ears just in time, and Watanuki's ensuing explosion came through clearly audible but bearable.

"Were you even listening? It tried to _eat _me!"

"So you left it there to eat other people?" she asked with a raised eyebrow.

"It's broken," Doumeki told her, deflecting the next scream of outrage. The wound on his left hand attested to that; he'd been more concerned with getting Watanuki back to the shop than with paying attention to the shards. It probably wouldn't require medical attention, but drawing the bow was going to hurt for a good week.

Yuuko nodded as if this was the confirmation of something she'd known all along, then her face brightened. "Well then, it's time for all good children to go to bed!" She announced cheerfully, clasping her hands in front of her heart.

Watanuki went from exasperated to somewhat embarrassed in less time that it took Doumeki to glance back at him. "It's the full moon," he said shiftily. It was a mere statement, that didn't really imply anything. But didn't spirits get stronger with the moon? Letting Watanuki go home alone in the middle of the night was probably not a good idea, especially since he'd already had his near-death experience of the day.

"I'll-" Doumeki started, and was interrupted by Yuuko's chirp of "Mokona will go home with you".

"Sleepover at Watanuki's!" Mokona added, bouncing excitedly to Watanuki's shoulder, and from there to inside his school bag.

That was an acceptable alternative. Doumeki needed to bandage that wound properly, anyway.

Watanuki kept grumbling as they walked out the shop together, but Doumeki assumed that since he wasn't yelling, whatever he was saying wasn't directed at him. When their paths separated he threw a 'fried shrimp tomorrow' over his shoulder and walked on despite the angry spluttering behind him.

Hanging around Watanuki after a rescue was always entertaining, but at the moment he was just a bit too tired to milk it for all it was worth. He'd get the chance the next day anyway, when Kunogi asked what he'd done to his hand.

For now, he went through his post-errand routine as usual; clean and bandage wounds, wash, push away any and all speculation on the many ways things could have gone worse, and go to bed.

He was on the verge of falling asleep when something made him snap back to full awareness. He didn't know what it was; never did. But these twinges told him that things weren't as they should be, and so far it had always been the case. This probably meant that Watanuki was somehow in trouble _again_, and if he had to go out again now he was going to demand dessert for a week.

He didn't, because when he slid open the doors that led to the garden Watanuki was sitting there, back leaning on the wall, eyes closed and breathing heavily.

"Oi. What are you doing here?"

Watanuki's head turned to him, but his eyes barely flickered open. He moved a hand vaguely as Doumeki pulled him up, surreptitiously checking for wounds. It would be easier, he thought, to just take him in his arms princess-style and carry him to the futon, but as long as Watanuki was conscious this wasn't going to happen without a lot more yelling than Doumeki was willing to endure at this time of night.

Still, Watanuki didn't seem to mind leaning on him as he was steered inside. "You alright?" Doumeki asked, and prepared himself for a snort of "do I _look_ alright?", at the very least.

" 'm fine," Watanuki mumbled without a trace of his usual antagonism. "Just..." Another vague wave of his hand, this time towards the futon, and Doumeki gave up on asking for the time being. He helped the drowsy boy in bed, slow and careful not to do anything that might spark a fit of protests. But there was none, nothing from Watanuki but attempts to move his limbs in a semi-helpful fashion until he simply collapsed on the bed.

Doumeki pulled the blanket over him, and Watanuki seemed to sink in the mattress in comfort, smiling a tender smile Doumeki had seen perhaps three times in their acquaintance, and never directed to him.

"Thanks," he whispered, his eyes blinking open for the briefest second.

The weary confusion Doumeki had been feeling disappeared, replaced by a wave of cold that focused into an icy clamp on his empty stomach as his hand automatically reached up to his right eye.

_A mistake_, he thought, but if it was, it wasn't his. He'd spent enough time contemplating Watanuki's eyes - for one reason or another - to know he was right.

This wasn't Watanuki. The eyes were wrong, their colors switched as if the mistake was as easy as putting on a jumper inside out.

Not-Watanuki groaned in his sleep and Doumeki had to resist the urge to shake him awake and demand answers. That could wait for as long as it took him to check that the real one was alright.

He went to the living-room, leaving his bedroom door ajar so he could keep an eye on the sleeping shape-stealer.

He never made it as far as the phone; Yuuko was in the living room, sitting in a graceful _seiza _and eying the two bottles of his grandfather's wine that were permanently stationed on the buffet in case of an impromptu visit. He found her presence was hardly a surprise.

"Doumeki-kun. Is your guest comfortably settled?" she asked brightly, like she wasn't trespassing on sacred ground -technically- in the middle of the night.

He didn't even bother to ask how she knew or why she was here. Even if it had mattered, he doubted she would have given him a straight answer anyway. At least he could be reasonably sure that Watanuki - the real Watanuki - was in no immediate danger. When he was she got... not worried, exactly, but almost imperceptibly agitated.

"He's sleeping," he answered shortly, going straight to the alcohol. Her expression changed instantly, eyes lighting up as the serious line of her mouth curved in an expectant smile.

"How many answers would this buy?" he asked, looking her steadily in the eye as he gestured vaguely towards the bottles.

For a split second he thought he'd managed to surprise her, then an amused smile crossed her lips.

"As many as it takes to empty them," she said in the tone that meant _it's a deal_.

Doumeki had had time to learn to recognize it. For someone who had always done his best to build his life with his own two hands, he'd been making quite a few wishes these past few months.

He opened the first bottle slowly, trying to sort out the questions in his head. Yuuko sat patiently until he brought her the open bottle and a glass, setting them carefully in front of her. She smiled that smile that was reserved to good sake, and nodded at him as she filled up the glass.

He knelt across from her.

"What is he?"

"At this moment, human."

Not helpful.

"Where did he come from?"

She took a small sip. "The mirror."

So the switched eyes meant-

"He's Watanuki's reflection?"

"Yes." She drained the glass and reached for the bottle again. Doumeki felt his eyes narrow, but he was familiar with her drinking speed. This was not strictly unexpected.

He jumped to the most important question.

"Is he dangerous to Watanuki?"

She twirled the full glass between her fingers. "Not in the conventional sense."

"What does that mean?"

Another long gulp, leaving only a few drops. "His presence in this world does not threaten Watanuki's physical or spiritual integrity any more than any other human's."

That was a trick answer if ever she'd given him one, but he was getting used to noticing the catches, too.

"What about his absence from where he came?"

Her expression didn't even flicker, but he still got the impression that he'd failed some kind of test. "That might be a problem, yes."

"How so?"

He watched her fill the glass and toss it down.

"Do you pay much attention to high-school girls, Doumeki-kun?"

Questions that seemed completely unrelated to the point at hand were one of the few Yuuko-related things he didn't quite have the hang of yet. Still, they always ended up making sense. Eventually.

"No." Which might be why every single confession seemed to take him by surprise.

She chuckled heartily. "As expected from Doumeki-kun."

He very carefully avoided marking down that comment for later study.

"Then are you familiar with the tale of Narcissus?"

"Somewhat." Enough to get the first inkling of what this conversation was about.

Yuuko filled up her glass again. "Mirrors are more than reflecting surfaces. They are windows to another world, one that subtly interacts with our own. Occasionally, people can be controlled by what they see in there, become slaves to their reflections."

Yeah, okay. But however he looked at it, that didn't sound like Watanuki at all, and the first bottle was already dangerously close to empty.

Unless...

"What if there's no reflection anymore?"

Her smile reminded him of his grandfather's the first time his arrow hit the target. Then she took a long swig straight from the bottle and the effect was broken.

"Then the creatures on the other side that crave to reach into our world might try to take its place."

Doumeki didn't like the thought of that at all. Watanuki looking in a mirror and seeing a _creature _(whatever she meant by that) that might try to influence him... No.

"Can you send him back?"

"No." The answer as quick and spontaneous as the question, even as she seemed to remember her manners and poured the last of the wine in her glass. She'd known he would ask, but who wouldn't have?

"Is it a matter of price?"

She stopped drinking mid-sip and put the glass back onto the ground, looking straight at him.

"Doumeki-kun. There is no price that I would assume you incapable or unwilling to pay when it comes to Watanuki."

He nodded. They understood each other on that point, at least.

"Then why?"

"Passages can be opened in any mirror, given the right circumstances. But if that boy was to be sent back through another mirror than the one he came from, the link between himself and Watanuki would be broken. The mirror that caused this is broken. Nothing can put things back but the passage of time."

Doumeki opened his mouth for the next, obvious question, when something small and black flew into the room, rushing past him to tackle the other bottle. He barely had time to recognize that Mokona was gulping down the last half of his payment that Watanuki -the real one, so obviously the real one it was a wonder Doumeki could have been fooled- was stomping inside the room, looking exhausted and bewildered and majorly pissed off.

"What are you doing?" he demanded, pointing angrily between the two of them as Yuuko calmly drained away the last of the wine. "You spend all your time lazing around in the shop and the one time I'm looking for you you're off drinking _at Doumeki's_?"

Having apparently decided that Yuuko had exceeded her daily limit of alcohol, Watanuki stomped over and reached for the glass she had just set back on the ground.

Doumeki grabbed his wrist before he could touch it, staring at the drop of liquid slowly rolling down the outside of the glass.

"How long will it take?" he asked, his voice low but still clearly audible under Watanuki's loud protests against his Neanderthal behaviour.

Yuuko let out a graceful chuckle. "Next new moon," she said, and gathered the last drop of wine on a fingertip. She brought it to her mouth and licked the wine off her finger with a naughty smile, which made Watanuki silent out of sheer shock.

For about three seconds.

"Are you _flirting_?" He protested, flailing at her one-handedly. Doumeki let go of his wrist before someone got hurt.

"What if I am?" she answered amusedly, a mellow drunk instantly replacing the knowledgeable witch.

Watanuki stopped in his tracks, the energy drifting away as he came up with a satisfactory answer. "You can't," he said smugly. "You're way too old."

Mokona, who had downed the second bottle bottoms up, jumped and hit him in the chin. Doumeki was suddenly very glad that he'd got his answers -some answers, at least- before Watanuki arrived, because it didn't look like anything serious was going to be said now.

Watanuki was completing his third lap of chase-Mokona-around-the-room when Doumeki decided to make them stop before the idiot stumbled over and broke his head.

"Oi. What do you want?"

It would always be time to tell Watanuki about his doppelganger after he'd gotten whatever it was off his chest.

Watanuki stopped trying to strangle Mokona and looked down.

"I've been turned into a vampire," he said, as if confessing to getting a venereal disease.

His attention split between looking at Watanuki and watching the sleeping figure through the gap of the bedroom's door, Doumeki almost missed the smirk that twitched on Yuuko's lips.

"Have you?" she asked in a curious, gentle tone that completely clashed with her expression.

"YES!"

Doumeki focused on him for a moment, then unravelled the bandage on his hand and shoved the wound at Watanuki's face.

"Here," he said simply, keeping his tone deadpan and carefully not looking at Yuuko.

Watanuki almost fell over. "Wha- What are you doing?"

"Vampires drink blood, right?" He ignored the conversation that was going on behind him in half whispers. The usual twinge of guilt that came with making fun of Watanuki in public perked up, but this was too good to miss.

"LIKE I WOULD EVER DRINK YOUR BLOOD! FREAK!"

Pregnant silence hung in the room after the explosion. Doumeki carefully considered the next words.

"...Kunogi's, then?"

Not that he was callous enough to carelessly offer someone else's blood as a snack. But it was Watanuki, Doumeki thought idly as the boy's face twisted in outrage and someone burst out laughing behind him. Kunogi would offer herself, if it was the only way to save him from starvation.

"No! I don't want to drink Himawari-chan's blood! I don't want to drink anyone's blood!"

Although as far as he was concerned, if it was the only way to save Watanuki her opinion wouldn't matter much and neither would EMhis/EM. Doumeki would slit her throat himself and force her blood between Watanuki's lips if that was what it took.

"Not a vampire, then," he concluded, a hint of relief breaking through his usual monotone. He rather liked Kunogi.

"THEN WHERE DID MY REFLECTION GO?" Watanuki yelled, somewhere between exasperated and triumphant, as if this was the last piece of a killer argument.

Not missing a beat, Doumeki pointed to his bedroom door. "In there."

Watanuki glared at him, then at the laughing pair, then back at him. "Ha. Ha. Ha," he said, his voice dripping with something that was probably supposed to be sarcasm, but sounded very much like annoyance. "Very funny."

Doumeki glanced at Yuuko, who seemed very engrossed in a drunken conversation with Mokona. No intervention would be coming from there. He took a second to consider his options, then grabbed Watanuki's wrist again and pulled him out of the room and across the corridor.

"What the-"

"Be quiet," he ordered, and pointed inside.

The Watanuki reflection - either a very heavy sleeper or thoroughly worn out, considering how noisy his original had been - was laying peacefully on his back. There was just enough light coming from the corridor to make Watanuki gasp.

Doumeki stepped back and closed the door.

"Like I said," he concluded. Then, for the hell of it: "Idiot."

Watanuki opened his mouth.

"Be quiet," Doumeki repeated. "You'll wake him up."

Be it because he took the advice for once or couldn't find the words to express his indignation properly, Watanuki shut his mouth.

"Well, everything seems under control, we'll be going now," Yuuko said happily, standing right behind them with Mokona on her shoulder.

"YUUKO-SAN!" Watanuki protested, as loud as he ever got. Doumeki brought a hand to his ear, but too late to save it from most of the damage.

"I expect you at the shop after class tomorrow, Watanuki," she told him, completely ignoring the issue at hand. Mokona turned on her shoulder and waved at them both as she walked away without a further word.

The door to Doumeki's room slid open the moment she was out of sight, and he brought his other hand to his other ear out of sheer instinct.

The other Watanuki, looking strangely vulnerable in his rumpled uniform, blinked owlishly at them. He didn't appear inclined to yell, which was a minor blessing.

Doumeki cautiously lowered his hands, only to hear Watanuki mumbling to himself along the usual lines of "why me". The other one moved away from the door, positioning himself half a step behind Doumeki, on his right.

"Are you _hiding behind him_?" Watanuki asked in outraged disbelief.

Doumeki had to turn his head a little to glance behind him, his peripheral vision on this side having declined with his sight. He saw the boy shrug, in the exact same way Doumeki shrugged every time Watanuki protested being walked home.

_It's only natural._

It occurred to him, belatedly, that he hadn't asked what exactly Yuuko had meant by 'reflection'.


End file.
